Heeeeere’s Arthur!

Jake honig

A close look at one of the brains behind a late night television staple

Every one of my interactions with comedian Arthur Meyer is some sort of bizarre hilarious adventure. This fact sheet I’ve assembled about him explains nothing in particular, but should give you a sense of what type of life is required to thrive as a writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Arthur can instantly recall the date, host, and musical guest of every single Saturday Night Live episode, a useless catalogue of information if I’ve ever heard one.

As a child, Arthur forced his sisters into doing a weekly sketch comedy show called “Meyer Kids Night” which was performed for their parents every Saturday at 8:31 PM because Arthur thought this was funnier than 8:30 PM. His mom loved it, but his dad hated it, calling the show “poorly written comedy by children.”

At the age of sixteen, Arthur worked as a little league umpire. Once, during an end-of-game handshake line, he witnessed the losing coach call the winning coach a “dick mouth motherfucker” and “small-dick cocksucker.” Young Arthur reported the coach for his foul language, and at a subsequent game heard himself referred to as “the Jew ump.”

As a side job, Arthur once worked as a nude model for the School of Visual Arts, claiming “I’ve always been very comfortable with my nude body, much to the chagrin of others.” During his audition he argued while naked about whether his glasses counted as clothing.

A couple hours into his first date with his girlfriend Kat, Arthur asked what percent chance she thought they would get married. She replied “seven.”

This year for his birthday, one of Arthur’s friends planned a ten mile walk from Roosevelt Island to Gowanus. Some people would walk the whole way while others would join en route. The only rule was that you had to yell SURPRISE right in Arthur’s face when you saw him. It rained, and this was canceled.

Arthur recently gave me a personal tour of The Tonight Show offices. I was hungry so he helped me look for food, which was sparse. Even in their large fridge we could only find a few different varieties of milk. He insisted we carefully taste each one and determine our favorite.

When I first met Arthur on Christmas Day of 2015, we wandered through a very merry New York City and ran into a few guys rapping a song they had recently written. The chorus included the words “RIP to my future bitches.” As we walked away, we debated whether this meant “RIP to my future, bitches!” or “RIP to my future bitches.” Unable to reach consensus, Arthur ran back to ask them. (It was the latter.)